How Can You Tell When A Hunter Is Lying? Their Lips Move!

The recent acquittal of the Puckeridge Hunt is yet another reminder of just how cynical and dishonest the fox hunters are. When their standard ‘smokescreen’ of trail hunting fails, they will say literally anything to get themselves off the hook.

Amongst several suspect aspects of the Puckeridge case, the huntsman claimed he was off his horse and in the wood from which a fox bolted because he was “answering a call of nature”. No wonder the magistrate branded his behaviour “deeply suspicious”.

But this is only the latest in a litany of absurd excuses told by the hunters.

Just a couple of months ago, the Fernie Hunt evaded prosecution by claiming that their hounds had become “disorientated” by rain. It is perhaps surprising that a pack that has been hunting through the British winter landscape since 1853 isn’t more accustomed to wet weather conditions.

At a mid-week meet back in January 2020, the Warwickshire Hunt chased a fox through the village of Horton at school-closing time. When horrified parents and children noticed the hounds had blood on their faces and flesh in their mouths it looked for all the world as if they had killed a fox. But no…the hunt explained their hounds were simply smeared with “red mud from the ferrous soil in Hornton”.

But it’s not just the foxhunters that come up with this nonsense.

Hunt sabs from across the southwest have recently exposed how stag hunts claim they are conducting scientific “research and observation” as they remorselessly hunt deer to exhaustion. This is just one of several loopholes exploited by the stag hunters – and it does not seem to matter that no research has been published in the 18 years since the law was passed!

Rigorous scientific research is also favoured by the hare hunters. When West Mids sabs confronted the North Warwickshire Beagles back in 2019, the hunters explained that they were simply conducting a “hare count”. This highly scientific procedure involves using a pack of beagles to “teach the hares to run in circles” as they are counted. The hunters went on to explain that this was vital training for when “gyppos with their lurcher dogs come here at night.”

The summer hunters – who pursue mink and otters on our rivers – are also masters of the lame excuse. When sabs caught members of the Northamptonshire Minkhounds systematically beating an area of riverbank undergrowth, they explained that they had turned out with a pack of hounds to “deal with thistles”. On another occasion, the huntsman of the Three Counties Mink Hunt claimed he was hunting “rabbits” as he waded waist-deep through a swollen river, while the terrier man of the Northern Counties Minkhounds told sabs he was only carrying a massive spade in case he “needed the toilet” – yep, that call of nature again.

An HSA spokesperson commented,

“On one level these pathetic lies are almost funny. But people don’t like being taken for fools and the real effect of this nonsense is to increase the clamour for a stronger Hunting Act. Until that happens, more and more people are choosing to get involved in the direct-action fight against hunting with the Hunt Saboteurs Association!”